


His most productive day

by Shipping_all_the_things



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Carlos-centric, Cecil Is Not Described, Episode: e035 Lazy Day, Scientist Carlos (Welcome to Night Vale)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-27
Updated: 2015-12-27
Packaged: 2018-05-09 16:54:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 917
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5548103
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shipping_all_the_things/pseuds/Shipping_all_the_things
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He had taken out all of the trash, gone running for four miles, and he had even completed all of his logs and experiments for now. To put it simply, he was out of science. Carlos the Scientist had no more science available to him... and a slight mental break slowly starts to form.</p>
            </blockquote>





	His most productive day

Carlos was worried. He had taken out all of the trash, gone running for four miles, and he had even completed all of his logs and experiments for now. To put it simply, he was out of science. Carlos the Scientist had no more science available to him. So now he had decided to go running ( after making sure to mark a path that steered clear of the dog park, library, and lane five of the desert’s bowling alley.) while listening to some music he found on his phone. He honestly couldn’t tell if it was music or not though, if anything it sounded like the hollow moans of a hopelessly lost soul.  
‘Maybe I’ll should ask Cecil if the radio station had a copy on hand.’ It was actually pretty calming. He had been jogging for what felt like an hour and had stopped to get some water when he noticed something was off.  
No one else was moving.  
Now after living in night vale for over a year now as one of the few scientists who hadn’t run screaming after having the menu at Big Rico’s told to them by the spice racks at the center of each table Carlos could tell you he had seen some odd stuff. And some things that were so odd that he couldn’t tell you for fear of re-education. But for once in his almost two years of living in night vale he was certain that this wasn’t right. Walking towards one of the Erika’s he saw that they weren’t breathing, or blinking, or being effected at all by the windy yet hot day. After inspecting many different people throughout the block he concluded that the people of night vale hadn’t been somehow frozen in time. They were just moving slowly. Almost impossibly slow. Which was odd considering that when Cecil had kissed him on the way to work that morning he had been moving with night vales time at the usual rate. His boyfriend (he really couldn’t get over being able to say that) had even called a few minutes before his show started, telling him to   
“Remember to put away any of the science-y liquids you left in the house in the closet that the Sheriff’s Secret Police put next to the fridge. The show should still run as usual if not for a slight slowdown of my pronunciation. As an outsider I guess you’ll just have to use your science.” Before quickly hanging up to start the broadcast. And after finding a large metal closet near a window that he was positive hadn’t been open five minutes before, he put away his chemicals and went to go mow the lawn.  
‘Thinking back on it now’, Carlos thought as he walked down the eerily quiet street leading to the radio station, ‘I really should have questioned that more.’   
Walking into the station he noticed that the door that held station management back from doing whatever it is that station management actually does, wasn’t creaking. It wasn’t creaking, or cracking, or almost breaking in half at all. It appeared that station management had also been effected by, whatever this ‘only in night vale’ situation was. Maybe he could finally move Cecil’s cat from its place above the men’s room sink… ‘Wait Cecil.’ checking on Cecil was his only reason for coming anywhere near this radioactivity minefield. As Carlos walked down the hall, determination increasing in every step, he marched straight to the door with the words ‘on air’ carved into them, they also appeared to be glowing but the scientist wasn’t going to question that now.  
‘One impossibility at a time Carlos, one at a time’   
Stepping into the soundproofed room containing his boyfriend, he had to admit that he wasn’t expecting what he saw. It looked surprisingly normal, if not a little vintage. But what he was really focused on was the radio host lying slumped on the desk, microphone seemingly positioned in front of his face by… nothing. It was just floating there above the desk. As Cecil’s voice flowed out of the headphones lying on top of his head. It was quite cute actually it looked as if he couldn’t be bothered to put them on so he just plopped them on his head, hopping he could hear the broadcast. And judging by the way his voice blasted in Carlos’s ears, that wasn’t an issue.   
“People are falling dead in the street- suddenly blue, suddenly seizing, spit dribbling from their lips in tiny pools of foam and mud in the sand, loved ones looking on without the energy needed to weep.  
Just nothing much of any kind going on. A lazy, lazy day.”  
Oh. Ohhhhh. That made surprising amount of sense for night vale. In a town where Liberians are the embodiment of all that is evil, and tiny people live underneath a bowling alley, the fact that the term ‘lazy day’ meant that night vale slowed down was the most reasonable night vale anomaly Carlos had encountered thus far. Now if he could just figure Cecil was still talking at an average rate- wait.   
“Not today. This is the least life threatening thing I have yet to be able to record and that’s what I’m going to do.” The scientist screamed to no one as he ran back home towards his lab. He could question Cecil another time, but for now it was time to make the most of the epitome of lazy days.


End file.
